Finally - the first of my new phase of paintings. This is Gabriel at the Point, it is approximately the size of an LP cover, textured, and varnished. I am slightly behind with my aim of painting one of these every week, my first attempt - begun, washed off, over-painted, scraped off, begun again, and again, and again - sits sulking at the back of my studio - perhaps I will work on it in the future, perhaps not. This is not an isolated incident, there are many 'sulking' boards and canvases lurking around - sometimes things work, sometimes they do not.

Meanwhile - I recorded myself reading a piece I wrote for January's Visual Verse prompt, the prompt had made me recall this painting - The Lick of Salt on Your Skin, which I painted in 2014. You can hear me read it by clicking on the play arrow below. I have made a few slideshow type pieces, recording myself reading the titles of the paintings, this is my first recording of a piece of writing though - it is 2 minutes long - come listen if you have the time.

READING STATUS: Diving back into reading for pleasure, the tower of lovely books at the side of my bed is growing, I am also taking full advantage of our fabulous library service and ordering up books recommended by Jen Campbell, and from The Scottish Book Trust's list of 27 Scottish novels to look out for this year, as well as other lovely recommendations.

WRITING STATUS: Pausing to write answers to an interview, this blog post, and to begin to research for a longer piece of writing. I had a short 75 word 'story' published on Planet Paragraph this week, these are only up on the website for a day - so here is a wee screen grab (how vain!) of it:

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PAINTING STATUS: After a bumpy start, the first of my larger paintings is finished and I am prepping boards for the next.

HAT STATUS: The faux furry one, even indoors.......I may have to have the resulting hat-hair shorn off come spring!